As a full-on, hard-left liberal, I have been forced to reevaluate some views.

So I figure this goes here, although depending on how the discussion goes, it might need to go to GD, or even MPSIMS.

I was reading this thread because I didn’t know the answer, actually, and had just dismissed the issue of President Obama’s citizenship out of hand.

Reading the thread lead to the Government website, which divides up into three catagories by the law before a certain date, and after a certain date- the way that children of a US citizen and a foriegn national, married or not, are granted citizenship.

Apparently, the legal issue is that in the year Mr. Obama was born, in between the dates the laws were modified, his mother was too young to be eligible to give birth to a citizen herself, if the parent was a foreign national, as the US citizen parent needed, at that time, to have spent at least 5 years in the United States after the age of 14, and she wasn’t yet 19 when she gave birth, so that wasn’t possible, even if she never left the US!

However, being born in the US would render this moot, thus the uproar about the birth certificate…

Now, the law has been changed, but the issue would still come up for someone who gave birth to a child where the US citizen parent was under the age of 16, as all they did was reduce the time after age 14 to 2 years instead of 5 years.

So, for the first time, I understand why they care about the birth record. I never understood. If he was born now, wouldn’t matter where, it would just matter that she was over 16… The law does not appear to have been adjusted retroactively.

I feel rather the way I felt when the Supreme Court affirmed the Bush Presidency. Something is wrong… And I haven’t accounted for it in my world-view… :confused:

Let me see if I can figure out what is wrong:
I can easily see this happening with a young US man in another country, and not unheard of by a young US woman in another country, although it would be a bit more complex. Vacation birth for her, vacation fling for him, unintended, anywhere else.

I can sort of understand the intent (assuming some age over 21, or something) that if the individual who had left the country for so long intentionally, then citizenship shouldn’t be granted the child, but having a law that applies that to young parents ought to have a stated loophole for that, or our whole basis for government- the citizens- seems to have been rendered dubious to me by this point of law…

And it seems pretty crazy to me that any child of a US woman born in another country, even if she is a US passport-holder, is not eligible automatically for citizenship by virtue of the parent’s age! What if dad was an illegal immigrant who impregnates a young teen in the US, and baby is born on vacation in another country, to her, with her family present- no one knowing where he is, what country he is in, or with any actual knowledge of his citizenship. Would the baby have to stay there, while they all, including poor teen mom, left to honor their own entry visas to the foreign country?

With the young father impregnating a citizen of another country on vacation, there is more of an argument for the baby to be the citizen of that country, as likely the father wouldn’t even be aware of the child- but what if? He has no parental rights to the kid?

I am, to use another poster’s phrase, gobsmacked!

It makes no difference. They have never defined “natural born citizen”. And, once the election was certified and Obama is sworn is, he’s President, only thing removing him is full Impeachment, which ain’t gonna happen. There’s also similar questions about quite a number of other Presidents and candidates, including McCain.
Besides, does it really have a impact on what sort of job he’s doing?

But in any case, the President was born in the USA. The stink is made up. It’s fabricated. False. Lies.

As interesting as the discussion is, it’s moot when applied to Obama – he was born in Hawaii, as contemporary newspaper announcements make plain.

Yea, the legal arguments regarding what would happen if Obama was born in Kenya are sort of interesting on a “what if” level, but the point is moot since Obama was born in Hawaii. You have to believe six or seven incredibly improbable things to believe otherwise.

There’s actually a better argument against McCain’s status. At the time of his birth, parents didn’t automatically pass their citizenship onto their children, and McCain was born off American soil. A law was passed to give people in his situation citizenship, but it was passed after his birth, so if you wanted to be a stickler, I think you could make a decent argument that natural born citizenship can’t be granted retro-actively.

But in anycase, the whole thing is kind of silly. If the voters want someone to be President, I think the rules should be interpreted as liberally as possible to let them be President. The precise location of their mothers uterus at the time of their birth is a pretty stupid way to choose our leaders.

I know this guy who knows a guy who says that he helped plant the charges in the world trade center towers. Liberal media never covers these things.

Once President Obama was sworn in by a Supreme Court justice, the highest law in the land certified his eligibility. All else is moot. The time for a proper legal challege to his eligibility was when he decided to seek office.

If there was any actual proof that he was not qualified to be president, where would the legal challenge be taken?

To the Supreme Court.

I love a good conspiracy theory, but this one just lacks luster and detail.

I don’t think getting sworn in by a SCOTUS Justice implies any sort of validation or certification by the Supreme Court on ones Presidency. Its just a tradition, other Presidents have been sworn in by whatever level judge was around, sometimes even state judges and once by a notary.

I say we build an electrified fence around the White House.

It does. It doesn’t really matter who they were sworn is by, once they take the Office of President, they can only be removed by being fully Impeached, no court can do it.

That’s probably true (though I doubt we’ll ever see it tested). I read Dallas Jones’s post as saying that being sworn in by a SCOTUS justice was some sort of special certification by the Supreme Court that the Prez was legit. I’m pretty sure that’s not true.

IIRC, its the sitting VP that gives the final certification that a candidate is the President. I agree that once that’s been done, impeachment is probably the only way he’d be removed.

I am absolutely loving the birther revival of late. Even if the OP is a liberal as he claims, it is catching on with the right wing again. They seem to have decided the fringe issues like birtherism, contraceptives and the snobbery of college educations are more compelling than the economy, which I find endlessly amusing. I hope they keep it up until November; we could end up sweeping not only the White House, but the House and Senate as well. Some are speculating it could be a reboot of 1964, shutting out the GOP altogether. On election night, the detonations you hear won’t be fireworks, but Tea Party heads exploding all across the country. Good times.

OK

Look Op, there is no “legal issue”. We have no legal definition of what “natural born citizen’ means. Technically if Arnie ran, and was elected he’d be Prez. He could argue that he was “natural born” (“Nothing supernatural about my birth”) and he is a citizen, no doubt. Sure some jurisdictions could refuse him a place on the ballot, and he could sue them, and likely lose, but if he got voted in, and sworn in, he’d be Prez.

What is a “natural born citizen’ after all? I mean, we think we are pretty sure what the Founder’s meant- born in the United State(unless at the time of the adoption you were otherwise a citizen, of course), eys? What did they mean “The United States”? After all, at that time there were only 11 states. (For example RI did not ratify until two years after the Constitution was legally ratified.). Would a territory count?

“The natural-born-citizen clause has been mentioned in passing in several decisions of the United States Supreme Court and lower courts dealing with the question of eligibility for citizenship by birth, but the Supreme Court has never directly addressed the question of a specific presidential or vice-presidential candidate’s eligibility as a natural-born citizen.”
The original proposal was simply that “the President must be merely a citizen as well as a resident for 21 years”. It has even been opined (see the link) that a “naturalized citizen” is a “natural born citizen”.
But once a person is held to be a Citizen by the US govt, no one else has “standing” to sue and hold otherwise. Obama is the Prez. No one can decide otherwise, other than a full Impeachment. Period. There are no “legal issues”.

I think he’s definitely natural born. I also think most liberals wouldn’t give a shit if he did turn out to be born in another country, they’d make excuses.

How adorable.

So, are you satisfied with the issues the Republicans are pushing in the last few weeks? Do you think contraception and college snobbery are going to elect more Republicans than jobs and the economy?

And that’s where you got overly optimistic. “View all posts” can be fun. :slight_smile:

Are you fucking kidding me? You do know there are countries where jus soli is not recognized?That means you do not get citizenship just by being born there, only through parents and for some countries especially in the middle east only if the father is a citizen. So now the US citizen parent can’t pass on their citizenship, their child has no citizenship by birth and what the US parent has to lie to get in a refugee camp with them?

All your suggestion will lead to is US citizen parents having to leave the US to raise their children, certainly what any sane nation would do.

I don’t understand the outrage here…
I don’t agree with the bit you quoted, I said I sort of understood the reasoning.

You seem to be responding to something you didn’t quote, and I don’t know what that is…

Guys! Guys! Hey! You guys! Guys!

Clearly Obama couldn’t be valid to be President- because there’s no way someone like him could win the election. He *must *have cheated to get in there. If we can just prove it, we can make like the last several years didn’t happen!

Birthers believe six or seven impossible things before breakfast.

Wouldn’t the Federal Elections Commission examine his filing papers? We have a bureaucracy in place that ought to be the proper line of defense.

Is it solely up to the states?